Mezzanine Seat
Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra/Petr Vronsky
Bruno Philipp, clarinet.  Croatian Chamber Orchestra/Miran Vaupotic
Navona Records 6186
Total Time:  74:16
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

Last year, Navona released the complete (to date) string quartets of Michigan-born composer Michael G. Cunningham.  Now we have an opportunity to move from these more intimate compositions to those written on a larger scale in this new release featuring four orchestral pieces.

The album opens with the nine-movement Silhouettes, Op. 225 (a first version was completed in the late 1950s).  In these little movements, the composer takes us through a variety of musical suggestions and feels a bit like a contemporary pastiche.  He begins with touches of modernism which in the opening “Corps de Ballet” tend to occur with dissonances being created against long, lyrical lines.  The closer intervals help add this sense with bursts of energy.  “Basse Danse” adds to this intense dramatic style with an opening ostinato pattern with small motivic ideas repeated and expanded upon adding to the tension and quite dramatic sensibility of the music.  These abstract imaginations move through a variety of brief picturesque suggestions like a modern update to the Renaissance suite.  Cunningham’s catalogue is filled with explorations of musical styles which he likes to integrate into his own work.  This is delightfully added into the “Gerswhin Portrait” movement which is a modern exploration of traditional jazz and exciting syncopations in one of the more standout moments from this work.  He also explores the Classical Period in his “Mozart Metamorphosis”, though in a more abstract disassembling.  “March” moves us back to more accessible, off-kilter, harmonic interplay with a sort of post-Hindemith style.  A calmer “Triolet” adds an air of mystery as it unfolds and the piece concludes with a brilliant perpetual motion-like “Furioso”.  Overall, it is an interesting work with engaging writing and orchestral exploration that would prove compelling for performers as well as listeners.  A strong work that is a welcome addition to the discography of modern American music.

Bruno Philipp tackles the composer’s Clarinet Concerto, Op. 186.  Cast in three movements, Cunningham opens with a burst of nervous energy that then shifts into a rather virtuosic display by the soloist against the dark textures of the orchestra.  Hindemith feels very much in the background of this work as well with Cunningham’s tendency to use a similar harmonic approach that supports his long thematic ideas that build and build like extensions of a Baroque motif stretched to the breaking point.  “Lithe” moves us into a suave moment of relaxation in tempo but the undercurrent of the music still maintains a sort of sinister quality.  Hints at the musical motives of the first movement flit into the texture adding a sort of twittering unease.  “Charivari” means essentially a “bunch of noise” often in folk mock parades intended to either celebrate a marriage or make fun of an unpopular person.  The style here certainly suggests such an intent with the fast-paced four-note motif that opens the work (an almost Prokofievian approach) with the serenade qualities reflected in the lyrical second idea.  The first movement motif returns as the piece moves towards a gradual piled-up harmony, last statement by clarinet and final cadence.  An excellent concerto, though perhaps the darkest of its type for the instrument!

The three-movement Symphonette, Op, 200 (1999) is a little symphony (it would be Cunningham’s fourth).  Prokofiev’s orchestral style also seems to be an underlying cousin to this work.  The fast-paced ideas that march along underneath the sinuous, long thematic lines creates this sense in what is a rather intense opening “Con Spirito”, but the final bars seem to move us to a sense of hope.  “Calmato” brings us into a more reflective mode that begins with an intriguing horn solo as the string wind their way around their own idea.  A happier shift begins to appear in the final movement, “Giovale”, which has a big orchestral chord to bookend the development and appearance of jaunty thematic lines.  It is really a great work that deserves a wider audience and we can be appreciative for its appearance here.

In Bach Diadem, Cunningham’s interest in taking older musical models and “updating” them is on display in full force.  Here we have three works (“French Prelude”, “Toccata Prelude”, and “Brandenburg Allegro”) that pay tribute to the great Baroque composer rethinking things a bit in modern orchestral dress.  The result is a sort of aural orchestration exploration.

For those unfamiliar with Cunningham’s music, this would be an excellent place to begin as the pieces here are all quite engaging, excellently written works with enough diversity that they allow the listener to begin to hear his own musical voice, one definitely worth listening to for anyone interested in modern American music.

Ruggles/Stucky/Harbison: Orchestral Works
National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic/David Alan Miller
Naxos 8.559836
Total Time:  65:28
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

David Alan Miller continues to build a strong catalogue of performances of latter 20^th Century American Music.  The present release is the third in an annual recording made in Maryland with the National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic.  The orchestra is made up of rising international and national musicians who audition to be a part of the ensemble whose players often sit on major orchestras across the world.  Miller conducted the first release which features music of Corigliano, Torke, and Copland.  The second release featured a performance of Randall Thompson’s Second Symphony coupled with a work by John Adams and the first symphony of Barber.  Each release thus tends to pair a “classic” modern American work with a couple of newer ones.  In this case, music by the late Steven Stucky (1949-2016) and John Harbison (b. 1949) is featured with works composed in 2004.  The earlier piece reaches back to Carl Ruggles (1876-1971).

Sun-Treader (1926-1931) is one of ten works by the elusive Carl Ruggles but it is a staple of any orchestra devoted to important 20^th Century American music.  Initially, the piece was to have been part of a program for the International Composer’s Guild conducted by Varese, but the piece was not completed until five years after the concert and premiered subsequently in Paris.  It would take another three decades before it was performed in America.  That concert was with Jean Martinon and the Boston Symphony Orchestra.  The piece impressed Michael Tilson-Thomas whose own dramatic reading is among the classic recordings in the catalogue.  The piece was inspired by Robert Browning’s poem Pauline (1832).  As the work opens, we get this sense of giant steps moving forward in Ruggles’ atonal language.  His style is not entirely serial per se, but he liked to write long lines where repeated notes did not occur until seven or more had appeared.  Thus the music is perhaps closer to Berg making it perhaps a bit more accessible in this expressionist-modernist style.  Miller’s performance is a full minute quicker than Tilson Thomas with the Buffalo Philharmonic, and one minute more than Dohnanyi’s breezier Decca release from Cleveland.  His interpretive approach though is to let the almost Romantic-like thematic lines swell beautifully against the stark pillars of harmony that build up around them.  Most telling is the crisp appearance of the different instrumental sections that really help delineate the primary motifs and harmonies.  The result is often a piece that begins to feel like an amassed suite from some long lost cinematic experience.  This performance is going to be hard to beat sonically, but it is worth noting that this Ruggles’ work tends to be coupled interesting regardless so it will be one of many versions fans of American symphonic music will be able to explore in their personal music library.

Steven Stucky’s critically-acclaimed Second Concerto for Orchestra (2004) would receive the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for music.  It was premiered by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  The highly-complex organization of the work is based on assigning pitches to different letters of the alphabet.  (Similar to Shostakovich’s “signature” motif in his work, or the assignation of pitches to Bach’s name).  Stucky created musical motifs for the conductor, orchestra, and even the designer of the Walt Disney Concert Hall where the premiere occurred.  Putting that aside, one can instead follow the composer’s concepts through the three movements.  The opening “Overture (with friends)” features references to composers Ravel, Stravinsky, and Sibelius (all somewhat specialties of Salonen and the orchestra).  These small cells help provide the forward motion in an almost magical an drich Impressionistic opening with a sort of post-minimalist nervous energy.  The central movement allows the listener to enter into the musical development of these signature motifs in what is essentially a theme and variations that continues this enchanting musical backdrop that further explores the orchestra.  Along the way are some very exposed and delicate solos.  The full extent of orchestral color blossoms further in the “Finale” with explodes at first with brass and then enters into a fascinating Impressionistic milieu with delicate solo wind writing and celesta.  The piece has a rather big bass drum interjection in the outer movements that dramatically adds to the intensity of the music, but sometimes overwhelms the audio pickup.  That said, this is an engaging performance of a fine work.

The Seattle Symphony commissioned John Harbison’s (b. 1938) fourth symphony for their centennial celebrations in 2004.  The piece is cast in five movements that feature musical ideas that are integrally linked across the work allowing for the listener to see how they are adapted or transformed both as one hears the work for the first time, and as one returns to it on repeated occasions.  The opening “Fanfare” has an exciting series of jaunty rhythms with big rich jazz-like harmonies that become episodic with a variety of interesting spun out ideas exploring the colors of the orchestra in between this unifying technique.  The music reaches back perhaps a bit to Leonard Bernstein’s harmonic and rhythmic explorations.  In the “Intermezzo”, bells and chimes add to a rather more jagged conception of the thematic line.  A playful “Scherzo” follows with ideas being tossed to and fro throughout the orchestra.  The heart of the work may very well be the intense “Threnody” which explores this sense of inevitable loss.  The “Finale” moves us closer to the more traditional sense of “symphony”.  The performance here is quite excellent and the interpretation s one that should bear up well while becoming a standard to measure future recordings.

The program of the current release features music that is an excellent introduction to all three composers.  The series itself is equally worth exploring further and this is as good a place as any to start.  Perhaps a future release can reach back a little farther to our 19^th Century heritage.